Convert text date (March 21st 2020) to dd/mm/yyyy - date

Question

I've imported an excel sheet into PowerBI and I'm trying to trying to transform the date column from text format (March 21st 2020, 00:00:000) into date format (21/03/2020).
Unfortunately when I select "detect type" it only selects text, and selecting "Date" presents an error. I've removed the ", 00:00:000" from the columns but still receiving an error message.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can transform this column into dd/mm/yyyy?
Many thanks,

Answer 1

After removing the , 00:00:000, you can use a transformation like one of these to remove the st part in 21st so that March 21st 2020 --> March 21 2020, which can be automatically converted to a date.
This transformation strips all characters except space and numbers after the first space:
each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, " ") & Text.Select(_, {" ", "0".."9"})
This one deletes the two characters to the left of the last space:
each Text.ReplaceRange(_, Text.PositionOf(_, " ", Occurrence.Last)-2, 2, "")
The full query (using the first option) would look like this:
let
Source = <Your Data Source>,
Remove00 = Table.TransformColumns(Source, {{"DateText", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, ","), type text}}),
StripOrdinal = Table.TransformColumns(Remove00, {{"DateText", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_," ") & Text.Select(_, {" ","0".."9"}), type text}}),
TextToDate = Table.TransformColumnTypes(StripOrdinal,{{"DateText", type date}})
in
TextToDate

Answer 2

You could use this PowerQuery Script:
let
Source = Excel.Workbook(File.Contents("Dates.xlsx"), null, true),
Sheet1_Sheet = Source{[Item="Sheet1",Kind="Sheet"]}[Data],
#"Changed Type" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(Sheet1_Sheet,{{"Column1", type text}}),
#"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.SplitColumn(#"Changed Type", "Column1", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter(" ", QuoteStyle.Csv), {"Column1.1", "Column1.2", "Column1.3"}),
#"Added Month" = Table.AddColumn(#"Split Column by Delimiter", "Month", each if [Column1.1] = "January" then 1 else if [Column1.1] = "February" then 2 else if [Column1.1] = "March" then 3 else if [Column1.1] = "April" then 4 else if [Column1.1] = "May" then 5 else if [Column1.1] = "June" then 6 else if [Column1.1] = "July" then 7 else if [Column1.1] = "August" then 8 else if [Column1.1] = "September" then 9 else if [Column1.1] = "October" then 10 else if [Column1.1] = "November" then 11 else if [Column1.1] = "December" then 12 else 0),
#"Added Day" = Table.AddColumn(#"Added Month", "Day", each Text.Select([Column1.2], {"0".."9"})),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Added Day",{"Column1.1", "Column1.2"}),
#"Renamed Columns" = Table.RenameColumns(#"Removed Columns",{{"Column1.3", "Year"}}),
#"Changed Type2" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(#"Renamed Columns",{{"Year", Int64.Type}, {"Month", Int64.Type}, {"Day", Int64.Type}}),
#"Inserted Merged Column" = Table.AddColumn(#"Changed Type2", "Date", each Text.Combine({Text.From([Day], "de-DE"), "/", Text.From([Month], "de-DE"), "/", Text.From([Year], "de-DE")}), type text),
#"Changed Type3" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(#"Inserted Merged Column",{{"Date", type date}}),
#"Removed Columns2" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Changed Type3",{"Year", "Month", "Day"})
in
#"Removed Columns2"
The conversion to your final data format is depending on your local settings and is usally done outside PowerQuery.